Sinking (In)

I’m afraid to say anything because I don’t want to jinx things. But so far all signs point to things are going just fine.

I tell myself this isn’t like my first pregnancy, when the sac was measuring a week behind and my HCG levels suddenly stopped rising, after perfectly good beta levels. This isn’t like my second pregnancy, where my betas were low the entire time (but the sac measured fine) and I was told from the get-go that it might not be a viable pregnancy (not that that numbed the pain of losing later on). And it certainly is not like my third pregnancy (call it what you like: the heterotopic baby or twin-baby-in-the-tube) discovered a month after my D/C only after going through a horrifically painful experience.

This pregnancy, so far, is progressing exactly as it should. This pregnancy seems strong and viable. Each weekly appointment has gone well, and the doctors confirm this. At the last appointment the doctor turned the sound up and we heard the beating little hearts. Both of them. The doctors have given me absolutely nothing to worry about, even when I prompt them to or slightly unravel a thread of thought to encourage a negative response.

Nicole flew back from SF last night and made it to our sonogram appointment this morning. I am still officially pregnant. 7 weeks and 4 days. We saw the hearts again and heard them, too. The doctor said we graduate next appointment to our ob/gyn (of which we don’ have yet).

Grateful doesn’t even begin to encompass how I feel. I feel so fortunate and so lucky to be at this point, but it’s not like it happened overnight. It did, after all, did take us 10 IUIs and 3 IVFs to get here. I have lost track of how much money we have spent, but it is safe to say at this point that at least a full year’s salary of mine (before taxes). I have watched many of my friends lap me in the baby-making department. I know how it feels to have breakdowns in baby departments of random stores and at baby showers. To take longer walks around bookstores to avoid the baby section filled with books I am not allowed to buy. I have endured the fruitless attempts by others to make me feel better and I have endured the loud silence when others seem to forget the horror I’ve gone through.

And yet I know enough not to get too comfortable. Being pregnant is a whole new set of worms (which I think very much needs a support group). I have seen far too many late trimester disasters brought on for chromosomal reasons. I have heard too many stories of seeing heartbeats and moving along only to have things abruptly stop thriving for no good reason. I know of too much heartache experienced by others. I can’t sit back and r-e-l-a-x and take everything for granted, as so many pregnant women can and do. I haven’t signed up for Your Baby This Week email services and I have kept the receipts for the couple of pregnancy books. I have bought. Color me Cautiously Optimistic.

This Sunday, Nicole and I are going to a Dorothy Parker one-night show on Broadway. When I heard about this show months ago, I told Nicole how badly I wanted to go but how superstitious I was. I now associate Broadway with m/c, since Nicole and I ended up wandering about the city after both m/c and somehow ended up getting tickets for a Broadway show in an al-out attempt to soothe ourselves with anything (interesting, really, because we both pretty much steer clear of the Great White Way or whatever it is called and may even go so far as to mock certain shows). I was afraid that if we got tickets, we’d pretty much seal our fate for a negative ending. Nicole went ahead and got the tickets anyway. And we will be in attendance this Sunday, when I turn exactly 8 weeks pregnant. It seems more like a celebration now than capitulation to the undertow of grief (knock on wood).